A link to a land unknown...

Men have never really stayed long in my life my father was always on ‘business trips’ and then abandoned us fully. By the time I was 8 his sporadic visits to London stopped and the little hope my mother held onto for her marriage vanished. They were quite young when they met in their very early twenties with both studying law in Germany, Heidelberg, where they lived married and had their first child my brother.  My mother fell pregnant again pretty fast after he was born which meant my brothers were very close in age and one year apart in school. In many ways they were like twins, they had the same friends, same hobbies and also taste and tried to impose that upon me! I was 8/ 7 years their junior, and started living with them full time at nine years old after moving back to London from my prIvate foster home, where I lived in with my sister, in Somerset. The fractured home was due to my father deciding he wanted to spend more time in Nigeria, leaving my mother, who had to work, two jobs to get by to raise the family. This meant there was no time to raise young children, it differed with my brothers as they were eight and seven years old meaning they could be more self sufficient, where as I was just born and my sister was just three. By the time we came together again as one family unit I was

already queer as fuck! Belting out Mariah and whispering ‘slow down Mase you’re killing me’ from Brandy’s, sitting on top of the world and being strictly told not to and wondering why! They tried time and time again to impose a certain sort of masculinity that never stuck and so I learned it was best to keep my distance from them.

I’ve never really trusted or understood men and still don’t! I was raised by women,  my nanny from birth alongside my sister, my mother from 9 to 15, my teachers, my bosses & mentors were mostly women -I owe myself to women. The first woman I remember was my grandmother, there was something mystical and unknown about her, they first came to visit when I was very young and my grandfather in no other way to put it was on his way out. Blind and ill I watched as he was cared for by the women around him. It led me to question what really is strength when connected to the physical vs the emotional? Especially as a once strong man, who started an accountancy firm, who made money, who survived Nigeria’s civil war, who was so proud to connect all these things and utter about "a man making ones own way through life" to then fall victim to life’s curse and suffer ill health, only be cared for not by men but by women. 

My grandparents were very Nigerian in many ways, Christians, who believed in a certain order. This was also passed on in a less rigid way to their daughter, my mother. Who I learned early on that she would never fully understand me, and honestly still doesn’t but we’ve learned to live with understanding that our misunderstandings don’t need to be understood in order to find a level of connection. When I was younger, I saw her accent and views as dated and connected to colonial views, imposed upon her not by choice but default. I watched as she adapted a kind of interpreted Englishness to get by, as a way to be more widely accepted into the often hostile and racist Britain of the 90’s. I noted that she sometimes looked on at me in horror, as I was born with the language she had to learn, manners and a sensibility that were first hand to me came secondary to her. I was this weird wild queer child in a world that was too free for her liking. She was connected in my foolish youthful mind to Nigeria, which always felt far, distant and foreign. 

So when I think of my homeland, Nigeria, a question pops up. What leads me there now but a father who was absent for most of my life? Nigeria is my native home, Igbo is my tribe, my people, my language. I am Nigerian but I don’t feel it, I don’t feel fully British either but I do feel like a Londoner, Tottenham fills me with horror and pride equally, it’s complexities have shaped me and allowed me to become who I am. 

Nigeria has been on my mind for a while, my thoughts have wandered there and a want has surfaced. Around 2018 I decided I wanted to go back and visit. I wanted to ask my father why he left my mother and us with nothing but each other. I still want to, to close a chapter of my life and hear from him his feelings, his thoughts yet also his fears as he was younger than I now with a full family. So I can listen, learn and hopefully forgive. I also wanted to explore the arts scene and see if I can learn and connect with how the artists see the world as reading ‘Half of a yellow sun’ and ‘Things fall apart’ soothed, horrified and educated me. 

I will never really know Nigeria, and mostly likely I’ll never speak Igbo, a language that my ancestors spoke up until me and my siblings. Its sad to say that even if I decide to explore it and live there my sensibilities will always be British and the countrymen will always hold me at arms length. 

I’ve only been once when I was 8, that’s 22 years ago now, I was a spoilt little brat, that was driven around in Mercedes and had bodyguards, I saw the world outside from a car window! Yet I’m not here to paint it black and make bleak pictures about the land or add to a canon that laregely depicts the country in an often desperate light, I'm just saying what I saw from the mind of a child who had never seen or known much beyond the comforts of my English home. 

Yes there was children selling ‘ice water’ in the sweltering heat, yes kids would run after the car and I’d wind down the window to gaze at them never seeing so many faces that looked so similar to my own in one place, dipping into my pocket to give them Naira, baffled by the value of the notes. Yes the police stopped and searched us but hearing our accents and knowing my father they let us pass, Yet I watched in amazement as the civilians behind us were taken out of their vehicles and searched vigorously and violently. I remember looking back as the dust rose and seeing distorted scenes play out, yes I saw a dead body of a women on the side of the road with a vulture eaten buttocks and yes these visions have stayed with me and in a sense haunted me, as even know they’re so sharp and vivid. 

When I think of Nigeria, I also think of my grandmother who lived there and lived through so much. She saw her country freed from the British, she saw a new nation Biafra rise and then fall with the cost of this, 2 million of her tribesmen and women murdered, lost, raped and mutilated, she raised nine children and then sent them across the globe to study and raise families,  saw her husband fade way and learned to live with the ache of loss. She moved to America, spent time in England and then decided to live out the rest of her life back where she was born, as my Grandmother died in January of this year, a link in an unbroken chain that stretched back to the beginning, to the start of wherever/ whoever I came from, broken now she’s gone. 

I was due to go back to Nigeria in June to bury my grandmother, but with Corona who knows when this will happen?Yet I know it has to be soon as we have to now bury both my Grandmother and her daughter, my Aunty who also just passed away, last week in London. She was in her fifties and had underlying health issues, and so it seems that Corona claimed my family’s first victim, the first of my mother’s brothers and sisters to die in adulthood. 

Now that I'm stuck in Europe, not able to leave my house, city or country, it really does have me thinking about Nigeria and who I am and what I owe to a land I don’t know, to cousins and half siblings that I’ve never met and a father I want and hope to learn more about. As the European economy and my life are both placed on hold with the virus threatening to take more people close and far from me before their time. I think of what I want to do, who I want to know and that I honestly do desire to see my homeland and know more of it and in turn more of myself. I wan to bury both my Aunt and Grandmother to say goodbye to them and a certain kind of hello to my father and to talk to people who look like me and understand the mindset more and to travel and know a land that at this time right now is unknown to me. 

Excuse me while I express myself

Expression has always been something core to my identity, there’s been something in me that never really thought to deeply and just did. I’m aware there’s luck and privilege in not having to over think what you want to wear and wearing it, seeing what you like and getting it even if it sits outside the norms of the constraints applied to a specific religion, race or gender. 

Now no names need to be named but I stepped out after a while and stepped into a hyped Berlin “queer” party. The party was filled to the brim with toxic masc men with no manners, the kind who oppress themselves by aping their oppressors. They seem to idolise an outdated model of man, one in which they of all people should challenge! individuals who choose to be blind to anyone who doesn't resemble themselves or a version of a type in which they want to fuck. If I was taught one thing at this event it’s just how restricted and restrained some gays still are and that sometimes the restraints are what we impose upon ourselves and even traits that we then implore in others! 

In truth expression is an expensive thing, it costs a lot to be seen and truly show what you want to say and who you are. There’s  vulnerability in revealing yourself to such depths and degrees especially in a world and space where so many people are so ready to judge and belittle. 

To me what hurts the most is to escape the noise and persecution of outside and then to feel it more amplified and concentrated in one space. The majority seem to turn the venue into a hedonistic playground, populated  by Peter pan like types, out to play and let loose without care or consideration of others, yet even chaos needs a level of control! 

I don’t know why it haunts and hurts me but it does. Mainly as I feel like an outsider again to something I wish I could belong to but not in the form it’s presently being presented. I hope for a kinder, softer more caring way. I wish we could accept the labels we give each other queer, masc, femme, otter etc and learn to coexist and appreciate each other in full. 

Anyway fuck it I just want to dance to dua lipa while dancing and delivering vodka kisses to hot men or maybe I’ll retire from the night and Date someone in media, sip martinis at soho house and occasionally pop up the places I used to frequent. (Jokes) 

The Question?

So it’s Christmas time/ holiday season and for many, it means family, the one you’re born into and not the one you choose. I’ve always found the idea of family funny, a hodge-podge selection of people who just because you were born into it and you’re tied by blood doesn’t automatically mean you have to share the same values/ views and that family doesn’t have to mean much and they don’t have to mean much to you. 

I’m not saying that’s the case with my own but I am saying my relationship isn’t a cookie-cutter, cereal box one. I was fostered from birth till 8 with my sister living with a nanny in Somerset,  while my elder brothers stayed with my mother in London. We saw them often but it still caused a rift. One that didn’t heal and so at 15 I finally decided to leave my mothers house and find myself. I ended up in a stonewall gay hostel, a place that saved me and allowed me to learn how to live in the light and shaped my gay/queer identity and where I found my first family away from my own that embraced me fully. 

It’s simple my family doesn’t understand me and that’s why I’ve had to break away and take extended breaks from them, as they trigger me and bring me back to a self I wasn’t comfortable with. In the summer I ended up running away last minute to Brussels (for pride) when I was staying at my mother's house as the place just had too many bad memories that haunted me so fiercely as I remained under her roof. 

For so long I saw family as a burden, yes these are heavy and hard words to say and not easy to admit, but it’s my truth or at least one I led myself to believe in order to ease the distance I needed to create. Space I had to have that has allowed me to heal, process, undo, unlearn and become someone who I could understand, tolerate and most importantly respect and love. To say I don’t love them would be a lie and it’s true I need to try harder with those I lived with first, to help them understand who I am and what it means. Not everyone knows what queer is and the multilayered levels of my/ our identity. 

My family know I’m gay but right now I don’t think that they can fully accept my queer identity? The issue is so often in their presence they ask questions, ‘Why are you wearing platforms (my Fenty x Puma creepers) ‘why are you wearing pearls’ etc. Because I choose to express myself and wear jewellery/ clothing so often attached to women, they’re asking me why I’m stepping outside of the gender norms and asking me to conform, they still don't understand that one simple question from them is forcing me to confront shame and is dripping with hate. 

They simply don’t understand that my looks provoke them, little things are too loud for the silent sameness they have chosen to live in and that they are policing my queerness and protesting against my differences. These questions are triggering for me personally as when I didn’t have a full sense of self things like ‘why are you standing like that’ ‘why do you talk like that’ ‘are you a boy or a girl’ made me shrink and made me hate who I am/ was becoming, these words said,  made me run, made me want to undo who I was and made me not want to be. 

My family doesn’t know that it’s dangerous still to be who I am, that I still get taunted and looked at, that I’ve been beaten up and for now it seems will always have to question the surroundings I enter not just due to race but also because of my sexuality and because of this I live in fear but refuse to live in shame, (as I see no shame in my desires). They don’t know that we’re not only being beat up but also killed. 

But still, we exist, we have names, we have lives, we have feelings, we are human! That small questions and looks from those we love or are supposed to love and accept us can break us. We’re being broken down by so many so when we choose to come together with our family and they do the same it’s so hurtful. I’m just shocked that those so close to me, blood of my blood, know so little about the wonderful world I inhabit and in turn so little about me. When questioned about my question they say 'how are we supposed to know' I sigh but understand that some worlds and in many cases many worlds are smaller than others and interactions only happen with people just like them as admittedly my family members admitted to never having interacted with anyone trans or not knowing anyone bi or having fleeting conversations with gays. So I wonder if then as a member of their family and also of the queer community is it my job to represent and to educate and hopefully enlighten?

I’m happy to have found friends and a community, and live in a world with trans, gays, queers, bisexuals, non-binary individuals, people who have chosen to embrace their truth as why should we live a lie to make the wider world feel at ease? We live to do our thing and we live our lives and we’re not hurting anybody, all we want is a chance, the opportunity to live, work and love just like others, in many cases we put colour into this world with our designs, the way we turn a look, our words, we’re different and that difference is what gives to culture adding vibrancy to this cold, cruel, straight world. 

Our existence is a constant question one not asked but imposed upon us by the majority, being with my family has shown me why writing, creating and being is so important. I live to live in a day where ’why’ isn't asked of us and we are accepted, acknowledged and loved for who we are. 

Blue Badge/ Blue Bloods

I’m beyond broken in seeing how the United Kingdom is divided, tearing itself apart, it looks adrift, directionless, angry and sad. A jester on the world stage, who decided to write its own tragic script and continues to act it out even when ticket sales have dried and the production maybe it’s ruin. It’s director harps on with cliche lines, stone-faced and stone-cold, caring not for the audience or general public but simply for the donors who put coins in their purse and in turn allow them their tax breaks. That to me is how grand old Great Britain is being run, by the establishment.

But It’s an establishment that needs dismantling or at the least brought in to check, as it reeks of classism. it’s as if Britons are brainwashed and are simply ok to do what they’re told when told by someone with a clear cut accent in a nice clean cut Saville Row suit or chic Amanda Wakely dress. These people aren’t for the populace yet they remain popular, championed by the red tops which also feed us with more lies or simply let the blue badges/blood get away with the ones they’ve spun!

To see the sheer complacency of these savages acting savagely yet pretending it’s graceful is disgusting. Openly stabbing each other in the back, playing games that upend lives, destroying the economy, cutting budgets and dancing the dangerous dance of Brexit that has paralysed the country for more than three years.

May & Johnson have failed us as they fail horrendously to address the issues that created this hostile and quite frankly unbearable environment. For starters we have an overpopulated capital that houses 1/6th of the island's population, causing a strain on services, stress to the average Londoners lives, spiralling and unaffordable rental costs amongst many other issues. Then there’s the rest of the country left to crumble into nothingness there’s been no mention of how to sort the south/ north divide, of how to invest into smaller cities and towns once reliant on industries from a bygone era such as coal mines and textile mills or the ridiculous expense it costs to take a train from one city to another often more expensive than a Ryanair flight to our European neighbours the same citizens who are now met with hatred and hostility on our island nation due to the government placing the blame at their doors.

I’m sick of it, tired of the lies, the bravado the laughter in the House of Commons while people are deported, starved and forced to food banks, denied benefits due to system errors or literally die after sitting on long waiting lists for surgeries and education that’s not educating anyone with understaffed schools, stressed teachers and overcrowded classrooms.

It’s a joke and we are the joker but who’s really laughing? I don’t get how anyone would want more of the same and vote for the Tories, they don’t care about us (the people) they care about industry and selling whatever they can sell to the highest bidder, they can’t even be bothered to fight to raise our wages or to tax billion-dollar companies properly, we are nothing but pawns in their political games. They don’t protect us and haven’t they’ve continued to neglect and allow our anger to be misdirected. This was our chance to truly ‘take back control’ to feel the difference, to come together and want unity, peace and a direction that fosters communities but instead, we chose Johnson and for that and for now, I can’t live in Britain and forgive the nation.

The ways to reach us

I don't want to be white, I can say that with conviction, I'm proud to be black, and to exist within a world where my race has so much soul, with a spirit that shines in the bleakest of times and continues to do so even though we've been through so much and suffered/ are still suffering immensely. We contribute so much to the global cultural canon but in truth are we respected for our work in equal measure as say our white counterparts would be?

I must say my proximity to whiteness doesn't dilute my blackness, but my blackness is polluted by the images imposed upon me by whiteness, my mind has been conditioned with the constant barrage of things seen through the white gaze. Many times I can say with a sigh that I'm tired of whiteness, this overwhelming and often toxic image that is pushed onto my plate to devour in whichever way it seeps into my life, whether that's via culture, my day to day via the gatekeepers at cultural institutions which you have to impress to further your career, or bosses, boyfriends and whoever else pops up with some level of dominion over me.

Finding your place in this world is usually decided by the majority, a job, a house, a partner, all of these things mostly fall upon the other race and if that said race has reservations on you purely due to your colour then, of course, you're going to fall behind others. If you exist in a society that refuses to accept you into a community and decides to hire or offer someone who looks more like themselves an opportunity. Essentially this behaviour keeps us in place - a space below them.

I don't think white people understand how privileged they are to walk into places for example like cultural institutions and be of the populace, these spaces are already intimidating enough for me, as I've always felt pretentious for liking what I like, I didn't grow up in a cultural environment and my parents still don't understand what I do/ have done, I've always felt like I don't belong in these spaces and the way people stare sometimes is like that question I'm asking myself is answered right there... what I also wonder is where are my fellow people of colour? Are these festivals boring for us? Maybe the line up isn't diverse enough and in turn appreciative of minorities contribution to culture? What is western culture but a continuous conversation dominated largely by cis white men making work that speaks to other cis white men, the critics who applaud, the cast/ crew/ producers, studio execs. It's a long game that needs to change.

In many ways, it drives me crazy that I still have to be so conscious of my race. I get bored of having to impress individuals who don't know too much about my full experiences and don't care either, people who limit the black experience to pain with stories told about slavery or being drug dealers/ criminals the ones that people outside of ourselves relate to and consume.

 

It seems it's easy to clutch pearls and slowly sip wine when looking at the POC experience with a distance! It's also funny that any movie with a black cast or predominant one is labelled as a black movie even if it touches upon universal themes. It seems they want to judge us simply on the basis of what they see first - my colour. I want to move beyond this and into a place where I'm a person that's allowed to be confident in their skin yet not wholly defined by it and the negative stereotypes attached to blackness.

The many points of privilege.

It's easy to wallow in self-pity but pity parties are events reserved for one, and I have to acknowledge that regardless of how low I might feel I don't have it that bad.

Now I'm not going to veer into the cocky or worse arrogant and lay down my assets but the simplest of matters is although I may be a double minority, I probably don't have it as bad as I used to think. It's so easy to become trapped in my head and think the world is against me, to fall into feeling lonely and to not want or be able to see outside the borders of / the limitations of my mind. What I've learned from my friends is that I'm free in many ways, I'm not trapped by body issues, I'm shy but can hold conversations, and for better or worse when I'm out and about I get attention.

Attention can make me feel attractive and give me quick bursts of validation but it can also make me feel down and lost. As I want to take things like dating seriously but I hardly meet anyone serious, between the quick hookups in clubs or bars, unsolicited explicit pics and late-night horny messages on apps the divide is huge. I get easily frustrated and saddened and I have to admit that when someone messages me the same kind of robotic shit I've seen thousands of times before I still sigh, roll my eyes and feel a little upset! Even though I know I'm expecting different results and know the majority of men like it quick and easy. I still live in hope as hope in many senses is all we have.

My hope is a prayer in which I live in/on, hoping that one day we will be kinder to ourselves and build a community where all can live the way they see fit, where all can feel accepted, wanted and desired without feeling sidelined and unworthy. No one wants to battle to come out and feel free only to then find a community that's plagued with insecurities and divisions!

In truth, I don't feel fully represented or that free at queer events or across the media, I still feel like the odd one out mainly for my colour, something I have to accept being in Berlin. I used to feel so down about going out and being surrounded by a certain type of man, being attracted to said man and that individual not caring if I exist, my head would run riot with why, how, when and I would blame myself and the world around me.

These questions would spin in my head over and over, was it because I was black? the fact I didn't fit clearly into the binary of masculine or feminine? the clothes I wear? or was I simply not his type? I beat myself up and wore myself down, comparing myself to others, feeling jealous when I saw others make out and live in love or lust, I would wonder when would it be my turn? Or would I always have to touch from a distance or window shop for someone/something I'd never own?

But I have to admit that my struggle isn't internal it's external, my issue is the way the world treats me for being black and/ or gay. Personally, I love being black, our culture and diverse heritage amazes me but I'm not naive to bypass that the skin I walk in has a history of horror attached to it. I live for my sexuality and I think loving men and two men in love is an extremely beautiful thing. But it would be foolish to pretend that I won't still be judged, attacked or abused for being queer. I would also be blindly naive to not see that both minority groups in which I belong to don't have their problems which manifest themselves in so many ways.

One of those ways is Black hyper-masculinity that seeps into both the hetero and queer communities of colour, in my day while going out on the black gay scene in London, there was a level of bitchiness I never got or wish to subscribe to, individuals who came out simply to stand on the wall watch, gossip and belittle. evidently insecure people pushing that into the atmosphere.
on the white queer scene or spaces billed as open and diverse meaning meant for everyone but sadly not true, it's toxic in the sense of men who think they are the world, the centre of the universe, arrogant, cocky and cruel with some who come out to display themselves, be seen, complimented and acknowledged.

I know queer friends who feel invisible, unseen and unheard, who beat themselves up for trying to be something they're not or chase someone who doesn't see them. I've seen the frustrations and anger from them at the level of quality of the interactions and engagements we have to engage with from sex fiends, transphobic, racist, body shaming, cheating etc, the list goes on!

In any case It's easy to deny your privileges or be blind or numb to it yet to acknowledge is empowering as it brings about understanding, it allows you to be able to push for change in places that won't automatically or don't have to affect you personally but can contribute to changing a system as a whole which makes for a fairer world, which in my opinion is what we should all be aiming for. We don't have to be selfish and we should feel emphatic towards the plights of others. I don't believe in being on top while others remain at the bottom or rising simply for others to fall, I believe in a level of equality that's just. One that serves up justice, so I don't have to continually tell my trans friends they're beautiful too as they can feel the love, or my fem presenting friends that toxic masculinity is outdated and we are moving beyond this or myself that my skin isn't a burden and that even though I don't fit into the carefully divided subcategories of masculine, feminine, Cubs, otters, bears, daddies, twinks, you name it! I'm someone with a mind that can be outside the box and if need be will wait for other outsiders to see me if others are only interested in a slightly varied reflection of themselves.

I've learned a lot in the past few years about the wider community beyond myself from my transgender or non-binary friends to those who practice polygamy or how other minorities deal with the overt racism in the queer community. I now know that
my struggles aren't central to the centre but they're essential to diversifying a whitewashed cis male-dominated queer community. As equality means freedom in all forms for all who wish to dance and love under the rainbow flag/ banner.

The Look

I’m more than bored of individuals policing my body, it’s my body, it’s my borders, I will wear what I want when I want to. It takes courage and strength to express yourself, to look how I choose & wish to look especially when you know the comments will come in full force, but you have to and want to, as this is protesting in your own way. 

Sometimes its hard to be a non-conforming individual bored of the rigid boxes that the heteronormative cis-gendered mass majority oppose upon themselves and in turn upon us, it makes me think that the world is still ruled by stale pale males especially in the west from Washington to London, loud-mouthed out of touch men who reinforce bigotry and discrimination in so many shapes and forms, thus allowing it to be more open on the streets, the mask has slipped and the monsters roam freely. 

It has me thinking then where does freedom form? Am I free when I feel judged and policed? When I hear comments calling me a faggot or nigger or whatever else they muster up to try and stir me, shame me or put in my place - beneath them. I wonder what happened to them for them to hate and then I think of what it would be like to truly feel free to be whatever, whoever, wear anything I like and get smiles, praise or left alone simply to be, that’s my idea of freedom. 

Yet instead I get hard stares that are trying to push me back into a more polite and palatable existence, I should do and be like everyone else, fed into a collective consciousness and wear a white or black t-shirt with non descriptive tiger whisk jeans and some Air Force ones, then just maybe the stares would stop and I’d belong to something. Essentially the looks are telling me that I shouldn’t feel comfortable looking the way I look and the collective outrage does its part to make me feel uncomfortable, it’s best to unsettle and unnerve. It’s not just someone seeing me, it’s being seen in a cold light, my being policed and judged. 

Their eyes tell me things they sometimes don’t say, I’m offensive to them, how dare I be so bold, so brazen, they laugh they’re entertained, something to talk about for 5 minutes ‘can you believe it’ etc etc.

I often wonder how many who express themselves louder then I, have the courage to deal with this shit on a daily basis, some days I just want to blend in, then I think of all those who fought for my freedoms to be in the here and now, to have come this far for my rights and I say fuck it & fuck them, turn up the music on my headphones, head high, march forward and hop and skip to the beat of the drums. 

People at parties

It's no secret that the nightlife in Berlin is unique, a highlight in the city's experience and as a tourist, you can be wowed and moved by it, but when you live here it can be hard to not get caught up in the constant chaos of clubbing.

One of the purest moments I've felt in a long time was in a Panorama bar. I was on a soft buzz of alcohol but no drugs, and I felt this lightness take over me as I connected to the environment, which served up a vibe & mood that synced with the music and I fell into the spirit of those present. It was truly electrifying and I live for occasions like these, as it wasn't a memory it was a moment something that can't be relived but a similar sensation can be found and had but not by force, by being.

It was the opposite of a techno-trance which I also experienced downstairs in Berghain. A more singular almost religious experience where you fall into yourself and it feels you're being taken over by something outside of your being, moving without thinking, your mind cleansed and clear.

Yet what happens when you overdo clubbing or overstay a party that's going on for three days? For me, I become an anxious, paranoid shell with no personality and the whole point of feeling free and going out is undermined and ruined. It gets to a point and place where I'm not having fun anymore & in truth, I'm no longer fun to be around, I just don't want to face the reality of my life and the outside world and so delay at any cost.

In these moments I start seeing Berlin parties in a new light, and how they can be very high school with still a lot of judgement in a space that's supposed to be safe for queers and individuals who have been judged their entire lives. I can see how men peacock and parade and as a minority, I actually can feel overwhelmed by the displays.

Of course it's also like a gilded cage where all the bullshit and drama outside doesn't matter, you can meet new people, disappear into then without having to worry too much about building a long-lasting connection, as it can simply be
about investing in the here and the now without really caring about the future! The immediate future is the next fix, the next high to combat the low! To be awake but to dream... as we are all trying to find our true self that we are most comfortable with or can cope with...

My main issue is that I want to disappear, I don't want to always be thinking deep thoughts about life and partying is my escape. It can also be beautiful, healing yet scary as well but like most in the right dosage and right company clubbing can be amazing.

We're all pretty broken in many ways and fundamentally it is escapism and the partying itself is a drug also... for me I'm lonely and it's not about not having friends it's just this desire to be understood. it's nice to be seen, to be drank, to be tasted and accepted. These spaces are places where many get their power, where they can be seen & heard. But at the same time, we can project our insecurities in ways that aren't healthy for ourselves or others.

We also have many broken people coming together to fall apart, which can be a good and bad thing. One issue is we don't know people and people can overact in so many ways... It happens all the time when talking to individuals especially if they're in a paranoid or psychotic state brought on by drugs or sleep deprivation etc. That's why sometimes shallow talk is easier as it doesn't provoke reactions... different people get triggered for all sorts of reasons especially when they're not sober.

I think the problem here is that we have tools we don't know how to use and end up turning them into weapons... we band to together to bully, judge and belittle... when we should be educating each other via conversation and enlightenment by togetherness & unity... we are also our own worse enemies and if we learned to be kinder to ourselves we would find no need to be so unloving and cold to others.

Womb

I've learned to write honestly as it's harder to express myself openly in person, I'm still shy, I'm still broken, I'm still weird and withdrawn, I've tried to overcome this and I'm working on these things to become more full, to move forward and feel more free and comfortable around others.

I've decided to share two super personal notes to two women that impacted upon my life and being, the first was at the funeral of my Nanny who mothered me from birth to 8 years old and the second is to my mother who birthed me and gave me the world. My nanny died in December 2017 and I read the following passage at her funeral in January 2018:

'I can't believe it and probably never will, I was raised by Hazel Conway from birth till I was 8, without her I wouldn't be me or the me that I am today. I owe her so much, and I just hope that she knew this. Those years and those lessons instilled, the patience when everyone thought I was dyslexic but she stayed with me and helped me read, brought books and pushed me and it's so ironic as now I work with words.

The first time it truly hit me wasn't when the news broke, yes tears were shed but it was when I saw a picture of my youthful nanny beaming at a baby, she always seemed happiest in the presence of youth and for her it wasn't a job but a role, a role to instil lessons of life in a new being, and those lessons are simple but not often taught! To live, to love and to enjoy the now.

She took in countless children from all different backgrounds, nursing the sick back to health and mending the broken. She truly was someone special and I know that all those she held and helped become who they are will agree, she loved and was loved and will be sorely missed.

I wrote this tribute to her, ten years ago, when I was 17 and Amanda, my sister found it the other day in my flat and thought that I should share it.

I don't know too much about Hazel's childhood but I can remember she used to tell me about living through the second world war and in any case it must have been a traumatic experience. Yet somehow and someway, the wonder of youth and childhood never left her.

Hazel's love of raising children didn't stop with her own, as she went on to foster so many more, privately and through the council, this includes my brothers, sister and of course myself. She gave a home to less fortunate children who could only conjure a mother like her in their dreams, that of course was until the day her door was opened to her house which then became their home. Every child that entered was showered with affection, no matter the creed colour or race, each child was treated equally.

No money could buy the love she gave or the time spent, a woman who lived to love, A mother not only to three but also to the countless souls who wandered through her door lost to be found and broken to be fixed, troubled to be solved. Goodnight sweet angel until we meet again.'

The second passage was written for my mother who turned 60 this month. First and foremost my father was and is a scammer, yes we can all laugh at the tired, told tale of Nigerian princes sending emails. My mother came from money, my mother had dreams, my father had ideas, broken plans and get rich quick schemes, my father is a man, my mother is a woman, my mother was a mother, my father was never a father.

'You know I think about you a lot and I think about the sacrifices you made but what makes me sad is wondering if you were ever happy, throughout my childhood I don't know if I recall you smiling, he seemed to have just ruined everything for you and that makes me extremely sad. I will never understand his hold on you or the love you bear for him, I never really will.... when I think of happiness it's dancing, cooking, travelling, hanging out with friends... for so many years you just went to work and worked to maintain the household but now you're free from us and all that and at 60 can you not find the power to fully free yourself from him? I don't hate him as I don't know him but I hate him for what he did... he abandoned all of us'

My mums 60 and my nanny died at 85, as I get older I get closer to the truth my mum had been married and had 4 children by the age I am now, it puts so much into context especially the sacrifices made. In order to become better I have to remember the love given to me by these expectational women and contemplate on the foolish mistakes and how I mishandled my emotions towards them.

The eluded illusion of gender.

t’s taking me a long while to know this and the small and steady steps that I’ve taken have led me to where I am today, but for me the question is what defines a boy? A man? A male? The age old view of the breadwinner, overlord, strong presence is dying out. We’re learning the complexities of the male beyond the frat-bro- brotherhood- egocentric- self absorbed- etc etc etc. There’s a softer stance not just for gays, bisexuals, non-binary yet also for cis-gendered straight males. why should I in anyway feel shame in embracing the feminine? Like it’s less, when in many cases it’s more, to be powerful in your femininity in world poisoned by toxic masculinity. 

I personally question constantly what it is to be bound to societies notion of a boy? And to then enter into the ‘gay community’ and be prized and upheld if you carry masculine characteristics and traits. I’ve been trapped in this idea to play down my femininity to maximise my dating opportunities (unconsciously mostly), but now I know so to continue would be a conscious decision that’s a betrayal of my being. A masc mask worn to try and woo someone yet by showcasing who I’m not. Slowly yet surely I’ve started to understand that I’m bound to no idea, no preconceived thought of how I should be and that freedom comes in finding a voice and vision and expressing yourself freely. I like hair clips, pearls, eye liner, strap dresses and lip sticks etc. And it’s no secret that, I check the women’s section Before the men’s in most stores as the clothes call out to me more. 

What I feel is fluid and free the sheen of lipgloss freshly applied, the sparkle of glitter on the skin, the dangle of an earring as I move my head, the freedom of a skirt letting hang what hangs below. These small things empower me. Unrestricted and living in moments lost to myself, simple yet powerful to allow myself these pleasures of being and in most cases to be in a city that allows my way of being. I’m not saying that I don’t get abuse but I’ll be abused in any case for being black or being gay so I may as well be bold and free. Everyone pays a price for their freedoms and this is sadly one of mine.

As long as I’m not abusing myself by neglecting parts of who I am I’m happy. I know that what I’m saying is nothing new to so many but it’s been a becoming for me. A reckoning to reason with myself about ones truth, I’m not masculine nor am I feminine, so what do I identify as? I don’t know anymore, I’ve been told that I’m not non binary by those who are and those who aren’t! PC gatekeepers that seem to regulate and alienate. As long as I know my truth I won’t argue, as that’s all I’ve done with the majority of my identities, question, examine and dissect - in order to try & discover. What I can say is I’m a being on the path to becoming more honest and fluid with my identity and that’s enough for me as I don’t need a label in order for me to feel comfortable and confident in my existence.